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Request for General Studies Designation for: BIO 113 — Dinosaurs Course Description: Principles of evolution, ecology, behavior, anatomy and physiology using dinosaurs and other extinct life as case studies. Geological processes and the fossil record. Can- not be used for major credit in the biological sciences. Fee. Included Documents: • Course Proposal Cover Form • Course Catalog Description (this page) • Criteria Checklist for General Studies SG designation, including descriptions of how the course meets the specific criteria • Proposed Course Syllabus • Table of contents (and preface) from the textbook (Fastovsky & Weishampel, 2nd ed.) • Selected lab handouts and worksheets Natural Sciences [SQ/SG] Page 4 Proposer: Please complete the following section and attach appropriate documentation. ASU--[SG] CRITERIA I. - FOR ALL GENERAL [SG] NATURAL SCIENCES CORE AREA COURSES, THE FOLLOWING ARE CRITICAL CRITERIA AND MUST BE MET: Identify YES NO Documentation Submitted Syllabus; Textbook 1. Course emphasizes the mastery of basic scientific principles table of contents; ✓ and concepts. specific lab handouts (see page 5 below) Syllabus; see page 5 below ✓ 2. Addresses knowledge of scientific method. Syllabus; Lab 3. Includes coverage of the methods of scientific inquiry that ✓ handouts; see page 6 characterize the particular discipline. below Syllabus; see page 6 ✓ 4. Addresses potential for uncertainty in scientific inquiry. below Syllabus; Lab 5. Illustrates the usefulness of mathematics in scientific handouts; see page 6 ✓ description and reasoning. below Syllabus: laboratory 6. Includes weekly laboratory and/or field sessions that provide schedule; see page 7 ✓ hands-on exposure to scientific phenomena and methodology below in the discipline, and enhance the learning of course material. Syllabus; Lab 7. Students submit written reports of laboratory experiments for ✓ worksheets; see page constructive evaluation by the instructor. 7 below 8. Course is general or introductory in nature, ordinarily at Syllabus; Textbook ✓ lower-division level; not a course with great depth or table of contents; see specificity. page 8 below II. - AT LEAST ONE OF THE ADDITIONAL CRITERIA THAT MUST BE MET WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE COURSE: See page 8 below ✓ A. Stresses understanding of the nature of basic scientific issues. See page 8 below B. Develops appreciation of the scope and reality of limitations ✓ in scientific capabilities. Only to a limited C. Discusses costs (time, human, financial) and risks of extent ✓ scientific inquiry. Natural Sciences [SQ/SG] Page 5 [SG] REQUIREMENTS CANNOT BE MET BY COURSES: • Presenting a qualitative survey of a discipline. • Focusing on the impact of science on social, economic, or environmental issues. • Focusing on a specific or limiting but in-depth theme suitable for upper-division majors. Course Prefix Number Title Designation BIO 113 Dinosaurs SG Explain in detail which student activities correspond to the specific designation criteria. Please use the following organizer to explain how the criteria are being met. Criteria (from How course meets spirit Please provide detailed evidence checksheet) (contextualize specific examples in of how course meets criteria (i.e., next column) where in syllabus) See lecture and lab schedules of The course will emphasize syllabus and table of contents of understanding evolutionary textbook. Labs will specifically principles including natural address the following: selection, adaptation, and stratigraphy and isotope dating phylogenetic relationships. (Lab 3); natural selection (with a Various other topics in animal simulation experiment), and phylogenetic analysis (Lab 4); 1. Course emphasizes biology will be explored as well, Species diversity and community the mastery of basic including basic principles of structure (Labs 5-6); allometry scientific principles anatomy and physiology (including and effects of size (Lab 13, and concepts. the relationship between diet and anatomy, adaptations for flight, though I plan on expanding this and thermoregulation), growth and lab). In addition, all of the labs and development, ecology, and focused on diversity ask students animal behavior (including social to provide adaptive interpretations behavior, parental care, and for morphology and relate the sexual selection). evolution of particular traits to phylogenies. Relevant lab handouts are attached. Week 1 of lecture schedule. The basic process of the scientific Laboratory worksheets will method is explicitly covered in the require students to formulate and lecture portion of the class; the adaptive and phylogenetic 2. Addresses knowledge scientific method is applied hypotheses. The field trip and of scientific method. throughout course as we ask how followup labs (Labs 5-6) will we our understanding of extinct involve students collecting data to organisms comes about and test specific hypotheses about the address specific controversies. distribution of fossil marine invertebrates. Page 5 Natural Sciences [SQ/SG] Page 6 Criteria (from How course meets spirit Please provide detailed evidence checksheet) (contextualize specific examples in of how course meets criteria (i.e., next column) where in syllabus) Stratigraphy and dating will be This course in is especially well investigated using real and suited for this, since we will simulated data to determine frequently ask how we know relative and absolute ages (Lab 3. Includes coverage of about various aspects of 3). Phylogenetic thinking (i.e., the methods of dinosaur biology. It will include evolutionary relationships) will scientific inquiry that how fossils are dated, how be introduced in lecture and characterize the exinct organisms are Lab 4, and emphasized in all particular discipline. reconstructed, how we subsequent labs. In Lab 8, determine evolutionary students compare tooth relationships, how we can measurements of dinosaurs & determine diet and lifestyles of modern animals to determine extinct organisms. probable diets. Relevant lab handouts are attached. Again, this course is especially well suited for addressing Lecture includes topics such as uncertainty, as there is much warm-blooded dinosaurs, we don’t and can’t know. Our social behavior and extinctions views of dinosaurs have where there is much debate. changed dramatically in the Lab worksheets ask students past decades, even the way to consider which aspects of they are reconstructed. the models are likely to be 4. Addresses potential Comparisons of traditional and well-supported by evidence for uncertainty in scientific inquiry. more modern views will be and which are more made extensively in lecture conjectural. The lab analyzing and to a lesser extent in lab (by the field-collected fossils for example comparing older includes very basic statistical and newer models). There will analysis for measuring also be substantial emphasis variation and comparisons. on distinguishing what is Relevant lab handouts are conjecture vs. what is known attached. more definitively. Quantitative approaches are Mathematical approaches will included in Labs 3 be used in phylogenetic (radioisotope problems), Lab 4 analysis, estimating the age of (natural selection and rocks (using half life decay), phylogenetic analysis), Lab 6 characterizing community (analysis of fossils collected on structure (based on fossils 5. Illustrates the field trip), Lab 8 (tooth shape usefulness of collected during field trip), comparisons as they relate to mathematics in descriptive statistics and basic diet), Lab 13 (estimation of scientific description hypothesis testing (using dinosaur mass by scaling from and reasoning graphs with standard errors), models and allometric extrapolating dinosaur mass relationships between body from scale models, and mass and leg size) and Lab 15 allometric relationships of (evolutionary changes in body size and other primate brain size). Relevant morphological characteristics. lab handouts are attached. Page 6 Natural Sciences [SQ/SG] Page 7 Criteria (from How course meets spirit Please provide detailed evidence checksheet) (contextualize specific examples in of how course meets criteria (i.e., next column) where in syllabus) Labs will meet every week, except for one week in which students take a self-guided tour and answer questions at the Arizona Museum of Natural See “Lab schedule” and History (which lets them “Assignments and grading” observe complete dinosaur sections of syllabus. skeletons and other fossils we 6. Includes weekly Techniques include field don’t have in lab). Hands on laboratory and/or excavations of invertebrate work will involve observations field sessions that fossils using defined plots, of actual fossils, fossil casts provide hands-on direct measurements (using exposure to scientific (replicas), field collection of calipers) of fossil, fossil phenomena and invertebrate fossils (near replicas, and modern animal methodology in the Payson, AZ), observations of specimens (e.g. Labs 5, 6, 8, discipline, and skeletons and skulls of living and 15), as well as enhance the learning species, as well as scale opportunities to directly of course material. models of extinct animals. handle various actual Even in the 3 labs involving invertebrate and vertebrate mostly scale models, students fossils and replicas. will be asked to think phylogenetically and to question the accuracy and validity of aspects of the models. Written reports include a lab 7. Students submit report that is completed at written reports of home using data collected on laboratory the field
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